Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Well, after struggling with my formless blancmange of an article for a few days, I finally had a breakthrough. Exercise definitely helped get things unstuck, as I was in the middle of a fairly vigorous bush walk when my head miraculously cleared and I saw what I needed to do to tighten this piece up and get it structured properly. (Oddly, I don't really think at all when I run - it's more meditative - but I find walking to be very mentally productive. Not sure why that should be, but as long as some cerebral action is happening at some point, I'll take it.)

I thought it would be reasonably easy to get this article written because I already had a good chunk of the evidence in place, culled from my MA thesis and a conference paper. But it turns out that was actually part of the problem. In the culling and cutting-and-pasting and reconfiguring process, I also ended up bringing in two related, but ultimately separate, arguments - too much for an article, which needs to have a single central idea to drive it.

So, Argument Two (and its related evidence, juicy as it was) had to go. It was a lovely argument, sleek and perfectly formed, but it just did not fit. I find it's always painful having to cut stuff that in itself is really good (especially when I've worked hard to make that way!) but it's been put in a safe place for future use.

Once I'd done that, everything else fell into place. I spent a couple of hours recrafting the opening few paragraphs and making some clearer links to the supporting theoretical framework, but there isn't too much left to do now. Just beefing up some of the primary material with some new sources recently discovered, and tidying up the footnotes and citations.

So there we go - from wobbly, unappetising blancmange to beautifully disciplined, sharp-edged gateau in just under a week! Mmmmm...gateau...

Your advice was still much appreciated! This is only one of several things I'm working on at present, and most of the others are at an earlier point where putting it aside and letting it brew for a while is definitely the best plan.